16 THE NIGHT RAKSHASHA.

Rustle!! Rustle!! The leaves swayed to the rhythm of the night, as the wind blew in the silent darkness.

As the leaves swayed, a pair of eyes watched from the darkness as the moonlight reflected the glow of the eye. The owner of these eyes slowly moved silently to where the two cadets slept.

During that time of the night, Clark and Leo were both already fast asleep, unaware of the danger sneaking close.

After getting close enough to see the new tyrants of the jungle, a cold glint flashed past the eyes of the black creature as its muscles contracted to prepare for a ruthless charge.

It was a Night Rakshasha, a black creature that evolved from the union between a black panther and a tiger.

A Night Rakshasha that evolved to become an exobeast is augmented towards extreme speed. They can fight with their four limbs down like a normal animal, and they can also fight while standing only with their two hind limbs like a human being.

They are nightmares, to any soldier that encounters them in the wild at night. They move and hunt only at night, hence their name, as they see better and fight better at night.

As they both slept, Clark’s face twitched at intervals as his danger instincts were already screaming in alarm. Despite this, the sleepy side of his brain still dominated as he enjoyed his sleep.

Boom!!! The Rakshasha suddenly moved forward with astonishing speed, as its figure blurred reaching him in an instant. It clawed with its sharp nails, as all the alarm bells in his head screamed danger.

Leo also finally felt the danger, as he woke up while hastily rolling away. Unfortunately for Clark, he was the Night Rakshasha’s first target.

He was fast, but the Night Rakshasha was faster as its claws ripped a good portion of flesh from his cheek. Blood flowed freely as the other side of his handsome face, was given another scar.

He endured the pain while gritting his teeth, as the pain finally made him wide awake. He quickly threw a dagger at the exobeast, but the Rakshasha was too fast as it swatted the dagger away like it was just a mischievous bug, but not a deadly dagger.

Already understanding the situation, Leo jumped as he cut down with his sword with great strength. The Rakshasha dodged, but he quickly followed with a fast sideways slash.

Swish!! Blood flowed as the sword connected, the Rakshasha quickly retreated after receiving the injury. Clark finally turned to look at his friend and sighed in relief. "Thank God I have such a reliable buddy”.

He didn’t get to soliloquize for long, as to his surprise the Rakshasha bolted again to his side with speed.

He was surprised but he still reacted fast, experience already thought him to never let his guard down. He ought to confirm first that the battle is over before relaxing.

He swiftly cut ruthlessly with his sword backward, with sufficient momentum to make maximum impact. Vroom!! The air vibrated as he missed, the Rakshasha dodged at the last minute by bending down. But this didn’t stop its offensive as it continued towards him.

Unlike the hybrid exobeast, he as a human couldn’t see clearly in the night. But the unique glow of its eye was very glaring, which kind of acted as a beacon of light in the darkness.

He already calculated for a scenario like this though, as he did a backflip and threw his other dagger forward in midair. The Rakshasha didn’t expect this and reacted late, as his dagger dug into its left eye.

It hissed in pain and tried retreating, but Leo was already here. He quickly engaged the Rakshasha, as the exobeast quickly became suppressed. But surprisingly, it held on.

Clark joined the fight, as they engaged in a bloody melee. The Night Rakshasha was an extremely fast exobeast as it dodged most of their blows, receiving only shallow wounds. But still, it couldn’t attack them again either as it passively defended.

Despite having only one eye now, it held on as it looked for a means of escape. They thought the ape was the strongest exobeast in this forest, but they were proved wrong by this Night Rakshasha as it fended all their blows.

After hours of exchanging blows, it finally found an opening and it decisively slipped away, escaping.

Clark yelled at it in rage as it ran, he almost cried. “Why is it that it’s only me you exobeasts know to attack the most, and only my handsome face you like disfiguring?” He grumbled in rage; despite the pain, he was currently feeling.

Leo comforted him; “you know. Clark, right now you are the stronger one between the both of us, so they’ll want to exterminate the strongest quickly to make the fight easier”.

Clark rolled his eyes at his friend’s ridiculous words of comfort. He didn’t know if his friend was right, but it definitely didn’t feel good being the first target.

That night they were still spooked, so they refused to sleep again as they ended up doing a night watch. Forget about how they suppressed the exobeast after composing themselves, this one was not your regular evolved beast. An exobeast that favors assassination is far deadlier than your regular ones.

A death you didn’t know how it came about, was the most terrifying one to soldiers. A beast like the Night Rakshasha can sneak on you and kill you, without as much as a struggle from you.

They silently thanked their lucky stars, as they thought, “the moon saved us tonight”.

If they fought with-ought the moon to provide slight visibility, there would have been an eighty percent chance that they died from the encounter.

[Thank you for reading this chapter I really appreciate it. Please if there is any problem with the translation quality or there is any wrong spelling or sentence, indicate I'll try to fix it immediately.]